Spec. Ed. Designation Varies Widely Across Country

In Compton, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb that has long been mired in
poverty and poor achievement, one of every 12 students--about 8
percent--is classified for special education.

On the other side of the continent, in the well-heeled New York City
suburb of Greenwich, Conn., the proportion is more than twice as high.
In a district where the average price of a house is more than $1
million, about 18 percent of students fall into the special education
category.

Those divergent numbers illustrate a stark and troubling fact: The
criteria used to identify students as needing special education--one of
the most far-reaching decisions in a child's educational career--vary
widely throughout the United States and even among districts in the
same state. The simple fact of where a child lives can play a greater
role in that determination than test scores, teacher evaluations, or
other factors.

"Special education has a lot of children
in it who aren't really disabled, and instead of special education,
they need something special in their education," said Gerald J.
Reynaud, the executive director for special services for the
19,000-student Oletha, Kan., district. "It is a pretty complex
problem."

In large urban districts, for example, the proportion of students in
special education ranged from 4.1 percent in Chicago to Boston's 21.1
percent in 1994-95, the most recent school year for which comparable
data are available from the U.S. Department of Education.

In New Jersey alone, the figures that year ranged from Paterson's
4.7 percent to more than double that in Camden--11.3 percent. The
proportion of special education students in Indianapolis--19.7
percent--was more than four times Indiana's state average, and well
above the national average of 11.1 percent.

The Education Department figures are based on the number of students
for whom districts compile individualized education plans, or IEPs,
which are required by federal law for students with disabilities. In
many districts, the numbers have changed since 1995, and some districts
use their own, different means of classifying students.

But the disparities raise serious questions for educators, parents,
and the nation's estimated 5.4 million special education students:

Are students in some areas being overidentified as disabled--a
label that is nearly impossible to shed?

Are large numbers of students in other areas being passed over
for educational services that would help them overcome potentially
serious problems?

Are districts with a disproportionately high number of special
education students spending too much money on costly services for
those children at the expense of those in regular classrooms?

Different Criteria

The reasons for the inconsistencies are many, and experts say it is
not at all the case that some districts are getting it right and others
are doing things wrong.

Approaches to determining which students should be identified as
disabled differ vastly from state to state and district to district.
The quality of services provided to students in special education
programs varies greatly as well.

Although categories of disabilities are spelled out in the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the main federal special
education law, the federal government has no direct authority over how
districts interpret those classifications. Instead, the Education
Department's office of special education programs monitors the state
education departments, which in turn monitor local districts.

Educators in schools and districts navigate a maze of complex
regulations and define for themselves such terms as "learning disabled"
or "mentally retarded."

Adding to the perplexity are broader social and demographic
conditions that may affect how many children wind up in special
education.

"We know poverty is related to disability," said Thomas Hehir, the
director of the Education Department's office of special education
programs. Poor prenatal care, exposure to environmental hazards such as
lead paint, and a lack of early-childhood education are common problems
in impoverished areas that can later lead to disabilities.

"But," Mr. Hehir added, "there are districts where the opposite
seems to occur."

Parents a Factor

Often, other factors intervene, notably the wishes of parents.

Some parents want to avoid what they see as the stigma of special
education and refuse the designation for their children even though
they may badly need it. Other parents are willing--even eager--to
accept the label, knowing that it will snag extra services for their
children.

"I've had parents who wanted their child identified as special
education because they wanted a tutorial service," said Gerald Hime, a
special education consultant and immediate past president of the
Council for Exceptional Children in Reston, Va.

That's what officials in Greenwich feared was happening. The school
board of the 7,500-student Connecticut district became concerned about
its fast-growing population of students identified for special
services. In 1997, the board commissioned a team led by a consultant,
Claire S. Gold, to look into the matter.

They found that about 15 percent of elementary pupils were receiving
special education services in 1996-97, and that nearly
one-third--almost 30 percent--of students in the district's high
schools were receiving such services.

"It's a very affluent district with parents who have very high
expectations, not only of their children but of the school system as
well," Ms. Gold said recently. "Parents really tend to expect a
customized education as they might get in a private school."

But she believed the district's problems weren't entirely based on
pushy parents demanding Cadillac services. Her team found that
Greenwich was offering little in the way of specialized help for
students who were struggling in regular classrooms, particularly those
having trouble learning to read. That left parents and teachers who
wanted extra help with no other option than to ask for a disability
label.

"They're demanding it because it's really the only act in town," Ms.
Gold said. "It's how you get help if your child is struggling."

Mr. Reynaud of the Oletha district in Kansas said he has also seen
cases where an evaluation team might "make a decision out of sympathy
rather than the child meeting the criteria" for a certain disability,
because the needed services were not available through the regular
classroom.

Putting students in special education because there is no other
alternative for providing remedial services is a widespread problem,
said Mr. Hehir of the Education Department. Such a practice, he said,
is "a completely inappropriate use of special education."

Added Costs

For districts struggling with tight budgets and limited revenue
sources, the implications of a high proportion of special education
students can be enormous.

Numerous studies have documented the rising costs of special
education and the burdens such expenses can place on districts. Not
only have enrollments increased, but the costs of technology and other
related services also have skyrocketed. In many districts, those costs
have cut into the money available for regular education.

Economist Richard Rothstein, in a report for the Economic Policy
Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, recently estimated that
public schools' spending on regular education nationwide dropped 2
percentage points on average between 1991 and 1996, from 58 percent of
their total budgets to 56 percent. The share for special education over
that same period grew from 17.8 percent to 19 percent, he
concluded.

In some districts, special education consumes an even larger portion
of the budget. In Greenwich, the figure was about 21 percent in
1996-97.

"The special education budget was increasing at double-digit rates,"
said Kathryn Guimard, a member of the Board of Estimates and Taxation
in Greenwich, which ordered the study by Ms. Gold. "It was becoming a
concern because it was impacting the town and schools'
budgets."

Too Few Students?

The consequences of identifying too few students for special
education can be just as troubling.

In Compton, some teachers and parents fear that students have been
routinely overlooked for special education services. The California
district, which has been under state control since 1993, fits the
stereotype of urban blight: Ninety percent of its students receive free
or reduced-price lunches, and more than half come from families on
welfare. Two-thirds of its 29,000 students students are Hispanic, and
nearly one-third are African-American.

In March 1997, Kathleen M. Elkins became the district's
administrator of special needs, taking over a department that had gone
without a leader for several years. She brought a philosophy that is
growing within the field of special education: A more individualized
education should be provided in the regular classroom, and special
education should be used only as a last resort.

"The easy way out," Ms. Elkins said, is to err on the side of
caution and identify too many children for special education. But that
can lead to excesses.

But she acknowledged that Compton in the past probably
underidentified the number of students who needed a disability
label--as evidenced by the dozens of parents and teachers who called
her office during her first weeks on the job. The 1994-95 Education
Department figure for Compton was 5.5 percent, one of the lowest among
urban districts nationwide.

And, even though the figure has climbed to its current level of
about 8 percent, some in the district still contend it is too low.

"They're here," Thomas Hollister, the executive director of the
Compton Education Association, said of students needing special
education. "They're just not getting the help."

The 1,400-member affiliate of the National Education Association has
pressed the district to evaluate more students that teachers suspect
may need special education services, Mr. Hollister said. He added that
officials there have improved their efforts to offer such
services.

OCR Scrutiny

It has long been a problem in some areas that children from minority
groups are labeled for special education at much higher rates than
white students because of misperceptions about cultural and language
diversities.

Since Norma V. Cantu became the assistant secretary in charge of the
federal Education Department's office for civil rights in 1993, agency
officials say they have been more aggressive in investigating special
education complaints.

That doesn't mean, however, that discrimination exists wherever
there are racial differences in the proportions of disabled students,
said Raymond C. Pierce, the deputy director of the department's office
for civil rights.

"Just because you have a disparity in figures doesn't mean you have
a violation," he said. "But it gives you ample reason to start asking
the hard questions."

Even when discrimination isn't to blame, other factors can lead to
the overidentification of students for special education.

Asa G. Hilliard, a professor of education at Georgia State
University in Atlanta, said a "maldistribution of good teaching" can
play a role. Often, he explained, a district's best teachers may not
want to go to schools with the most needy children.

The less able teachers in those schools may be more likely to
mislabel children as disabled. Some assessment scores may also be
flawed, he added.

Mr. Hilliard recalled visiting an elementary school in which slow
learners were pulled out of their regular classes for a special
education reading class, which he believes might not have happened if
the children had had better teachers.

"They were petrified," he said of the youngsters. "They didn't want
to be seen walking into that classroom."

Label Lingers

Once a student is tagged with the special education label, the
designation is likely to remain for the rest of his or her academic
career. According to the Education Department, very few return to
regular education programs.

Of the more than 1 million students ages 14 to 21 with a diagnosis
of specific learning disabilities in 1994-95 school year, only a little
more than 4 percent--37,184--returned to regular education, according
to the department's latest data.

Mr. Hehir of the department's special education office said it is no
surprise that so few students shed the special education label.

When applied correctly, he added, the designation works to give
children the help they need. "If a child is appropriately evaluated in
the first place--and that's an important 'if'--they're likely to need
the support of special education throughout their schooling."

Vol. 17, Issue 41, Pages 1, 20-21

Published in Print: June 24, 1998, as Spec. Ed. Designation Varies Widely Across Country

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